COVER STORY BY TOBY SELLS
SUN BLOCK
PHOTO: VACLAV VOLRAB | DREAMSTIME.COM
ENVIRONMENTALISTS SAY TVA IS A HURDLE TO A RENEWABLE FUTURE.
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March 17-23, 2022
lue Oval City, the planned automotive assembly plant operated by Ford Motor Company and SK Innovation, supercharged local imaginations. Jobs, business, and money — sure — but this project could allow West Tennessee to be a rugged, “built-Ford-tough” cowboy from the past and Captain Planet for the future at the same time. The project proves Ford Motor Co. is dead serious about that marriage of ideas. The 1,500-acre campus will cost $5.6 billion to build, the biggest manufacturing investment in the company’s history. The planned megacampus in Haywood County is the first Ford will build “in more than a generation.” This bold pivot to electric vehicles was a hard-to-miss shift in the wind. It’s a massive bet that customers still want the mythical, American self-reliance projected by its iconic F-150 truck — but they also want it without the gas-guzzling, planet-choking, tailpipe fog of most cars made in the last 100 years. The moment was bold enough that Ford CEO Bill Ford told reporters, “We’re on the cusp of a revolution,” one that would help “build a better future for America.” It doesn’t stop at trucks. “The all-new megacampus just outside of Memphis, called Blue Oval City, aspires to have 100 percent renewable energy, zero waste to landfill, and reusing 12 every drop of water, to ensure our planet is in it for the long haul,” Ford Motor Co.
tweeted at the time. But if nothing changes, the all-electric F-150 Lightnings that roll off the line here first will be ready for antique Tennessee license plates by the time that plant is powered entirely by renewable energy. Blue Oval City sits squarely in the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) service area, and that power provider says it won’t be carbonneutral until 2050, about 25 years after the Ford plant is expected to open. If TVA’s power mix remains the same, that cutting-edge factory — and those Earth-saving trucks — will be charged with a mix heavy with nuclear power, coal, and natural gas. Only 14 percent of TVA’s power-generation portfolio is renewable, including hydroelectric (11 percent), wind and solar (3 percent), and some energyefficiency programs (1 percent). Though, TVA says it leads its Southeastern peers with a generation portfolio that is already 63 percent carbon-free. Throughout the Tennessee River Valley, major corporations, big Tennessee companies, cities, counties, and more have publicly stated environmental goals. They all want to reduce waste and reduce their carbon footprints, meaning they want less reliance on fossil fuels and more on renewables, like wind and solar. TVA knows this, according to internal documents, and considers it a threat to its bottom line, one it means to fix. If this sounds off, U.S. House members thought so, too, enough to launch an investigation
into TVA’s business practices on renewables. JOINED AT THE HIP ON CLIMATE CHANGE Memphis and Shelby County’s climate goals around renewable energy will depend much on TVA, and some say that could be problematic. Greenhouse gas emissions from energy accounted for nearly half (46 percent) of all of the Memphis area’s total emissions, according to the latest environmental inventory taken back in 2016 for the Memphis Area Climate Action Plan adopted in 2019. Energy emissions include those in buildings: houses, apartments, stores, salons, banks, museums, restaurants, warehouses, factories, and more. The rest were emissions from two other major categories: transportation (52 percent) and waste (like landfills and wastewater treatment) at 12 percent. The climate plan — approved by the Memphis City Council, the Shelby County Commission, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, and Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris — commits these governments to developing renewable energy generation at key facilities (like solar panels on government buildings) and/or buying renewables through energy certificates, green tariff products, and participating in community shared solar projects. But those are details. The plan and, therefore, everyone who approved it, agreed on one thing: “grid decarbonization — or
increasing the carbon-free energy sources in our electric supply — has the greatest impact on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in our community.” They all agreed, too, that there was little they could do about it. “As noted in the discussion of community-wide education targets, a large portion of these 2020 reductions are expected as a result of actions outside local control,” reads the plan, “for example, TVA’s planned increase in carbon-free energy sources in their energy portfolio.” To see just how closely the city’s goals are dependent on TVA, consider their timelines to carbon-free energy. The Memphis Area Climate Action Plan calls for the electric grid to be 80 percent carbon-free by 2035. So do TVA’s plans. (Even though President Joe Biden’s climate goals want totally carbon-free energy by 2035.) Memphisarea leaders want a completely carbon-free electric grid by 2050. So does TVA. A mix of solar and wind projects helped the TVA to reduce carbon emissions by 63 percent from 2005 to 2020. But solar leads the way in the Southeast, and TVA says it’ll be mainly solar projects that will aid it in its future reductions. But environmental watchdog groups claim TVA has thrown up roadblocks to solar projects, especially for homeowners and business owners, to protect its finances. The reasons are complicated, but one thing is clear to Maggie Shober, research director with the Southern Alliance for Clean
